The Born Free USA CITES DelegationI am writing this blog post from the 29th meeting of the CITES Animals Committee, which is taking place in Geneva, Switzerland this week. Throughout the week, 300 participants will be seated in a large and poorly lit room to make decisions about species potentially jeopardized by rising levels of international trade. We will be deciding whether or not a population decrease is significant enough to warrant closer review; whether trade quotas are sustainable; whether additional recommendations need to be adopted to entice range states to take stronger precautionary measures; and more! Lions, wild dogs, sharks, corals, snakes are all on the agenda, among many other highly targeted and vulnerable species.[teaserbreak]
Sitting in this room after recently leading and coordinating a wildlife crime threat assessment in West Africa seems surreal. These discussions bring to mind the photos of the various species our experts found for sale in local markets and the heartbreaking discussions we had with enforcement officers at borders, who are trying to do their work without even the most basic tools needed to enforce CITES regulations. In the field, CITES is often completely unknown to the officers that are supposed to enforce its decisions. These officers don’t have much of a voice in the international meetings we attend—and neither do the countries that are the most affected by illegal trade—since, in most cases, developing countries from the African region cannot afford to attend these CITES meetings without sponsorship.
This is the motivation behind Born Free USA’s Africa capacity-building program. We attend meetings to be the voice of those who do not have a voice in the room: Wild animals, who cannot speak for themselves, and the nations at the front-lines of the illegal wildlife trade, who cannot afford to send representatives.
By supporting Born Free USA, you are here with us. You are making your voice heard through the interventions we make to urge countries to follow the most precautionary approach possible when considering the impact of trade on wildlife. You are also with us when we are in the field training customs officers or raising awareness about the urgency of wildlife law enforcement.
Well done to you for your contribution, and please keep at it!
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
